h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Since I had someone ask, I thought I'd better post a journal.

Several of you, I'm sure, have heard of the earthquake in Napa. While Napa is considered to be in northern California (and coastal, at that) and I'm definitely on the coast in northern California, Napa is 340 miles from me Since Google tells me that HN is 100 miles from Napa, I'm going to guess that she and Mr Nerd are OK, as well.

Hi Amy. Good to hear you're OK.

Having driven along about half of the route from your city to the Napa Valley, I knew you were a long way from the earthquake, and it didn't even occur to me that you might have had a problem.

The Richter scale is not a very good indication of the effects of an earthquake. I've been in a magnitude 6 earthquake in Greece and all that happened was that some partying people who were dancing staggered slightly, and a few items in the tourist shops fell off their shelves.

But I see that in Napa some buildings have been destroyed.

Well, small earthquakes in California are a good thing, because they reduce the chance of the Big One.

good to hear from you Amy

Earthquakes are scary things, and I've been keeping an eye on the news of the one going on under the Icelandic volcano



GB

good to hear I was convinced the Icelandic one would kick off seriously, just before my flight left Stockhom, half way back to Heathrow luckily not or unluckily not is the Calafornia one related to the Icelandic one; in terms of just generalised increased volcanic activity for some reason? - Not heard overly much about either on the news

Glad to hear it Amy

I have a couple of friends in Berkeley, which as far as I can see from the maps in the news stories, doesn't look too far away, who I haven't heard back from them yet. I haven't seen reports of problems around there so they're probably just busy picking up the pictures that fell off the wall and the crockery that fell off the dresser.

They have an extensive, and valuable beer cellar. I hope that survived the shaking It also worries me that Lagunitas, Moylans, Russian River and Bear Republic are all less than 50 miles from the epicentre.

The California earthquake and the Icelandic one are not connected. There are loads of earthquakes around the world every day (for example, Greece has more than 500 earthquakes a year).

Iceland is on the join between the North American plate and the Eurasian plate. These are moving apart and the space in between is filled in by lava from the Icelandic volcanoes (there are about 6 major ones). There are occasional earthquakes as well.

In California, the situation is different. Here the North American plate is moving sideways along the Pacific Plate. The friction between the two causes earthquakes. When there are no earthquakes, it is because the two plates have snagged - they will eventually slip with a much bigger earthquake, for example the estimated Magnitude 9.0 in 1700. This would have a shaking amplitude one thousand times that experienced yesterday.

Is Napa the place where there are a lot of vineyards?

Yep. They lost a lot of wine. Prices are predicted to rise sharply.

Baron Grim is kidding you. Wine comes from Mendocino. Auto parts come from Napa:

http://milledgevillegeorgia.blogspot.com/2011/02/napa-auto-parts-milledgeville-georgia.html

"Some wineries suffered damage to their barrel storage areas, wine inventory and production equipment over the weekend, but 'there were no reports of winery employees being injured by the earthquake,' according a statement by Napa Valley Vintners, an association of 500 area vintners."

I feel very shaken up about the whole thing.

I visited the Napa Valley once, but it was spring, so it was too early to see any grapes. There's a "Wine Train" which you can take along the valley visiting the various vineyards along the way.

I've never been there, but I visited the Taylor Vineyards in new York State about 40 years ago.

From this side of the Atlantic, the Napa Valley is probably the only wine-growing region in the States that anybody has heard of.

That's probably true, but when I go into package stores I can almost always find wine from the Taylor vineyards. Those wines might not be available outside the U.S., though.

There is some quite fine wine produced in Texas as well. It ranks high in various competitions, but I don't know if it's widely known outside of the region.

Texas also raises olives. There are five U.S. states that are trying to produce olive oil comparable to that from Italy and Spain.

I think you need patience to produce good olive oil. In the olive farms I've seen in Greece, the trees are over 500 years old.

Maybe they mature late.

Glad to hear you're all right, Amy!